


figure eight

by wilyasha



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexuality, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Polyamory, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:36:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilyasha/pseuds/wilyasha
Summary: Memphis has become smothering and Bayek is accustomed to traveling alone, even with Senu soaring above him.





	figure eight

**Author's Note:**

> This started as some Aya/Bayek fluff, but became a Bayek character study and an excuse for me to ignore fast traveling and go horseback riding through the entire map of Ancient Egypt. I kinda manipulated and played around with ancient mythology and the story before _Origins_ began, too.

The Black Desert is a sarcophagus, suffocating and paltry. A large, dusty monolith amid sand and rock, cracked open by a blade of jealousy and drought. The canyon is chilly on this night. As if Set, himself, is here to gouge out Horus’ last remaining eye.

Bayek shakes his head, freeing himself of those dark thoughts, the tendrils of wickedness that blur the edges of his vision. Smoothing a hand down his face, blinking away the shrouds, he tears up at the burning sensation behind his eyes. 

He flops back, feeling the cold stone beneath his naked back. The biting draft as it sweeps across the rock and down into the gully of the canyon. His fingers drum, palms face down, feeling the shift of pebbles, hearing the sound of hardened sandals scrape against rock. 

“I thought I’d find you here, Bayek of Siwa.” Aya’s voice washes over him like an elixir, sweet and warm, with just a fleck of violence. “Your father is looking for you.”

Bayek lets a smile play at his lips, baring his teeth to the navy sky and glittering stars. 

“Did you climb the rock yourself?” he asks. 

Aya sucks her teeth before pouncing by his side, rolling onto her front. She props herself on her elbows and raises an eyebrow. 

“What do you think?”

Bayek takes a quick glance. Her face is flushed beneath the smattering of freckles, her lips are wind-chapped, and there’s a shallow scrape on her cheekbone where she had brushed against a jagged canyon edge. 

As much as he wishes to make a joke, he tries to hide his smirk beneath a layer of stoicism. 

“You did well, Aya of Alexandria,” he says. 

Her face flushes and, this time, not from exertion.

They are sixteen and in love.

\--

Things changes after they defeat Bion. Bayek has never been an idealist. Aya has always been the one who looks at people and ideas with rosy cheeks and eager eyes. She’s always been the one to believe an idea can be a person, and a person can be a savior. Bayek believes it is her Greek side, the poet and not the warrior, the scholar who would do well buried beneath tomes and scrolls with ink-stained fingers, smelling of papyrus and wine.

No… Bayek has always been the realist. He knew one day his father would die, either by old age or by strife and struggle. But his pain does not lessen with that truth. He heads deeper into the desert during the days that follow. Hunting hyenas, feeding from vultures, screaming and wailing to the gods, hoping that Horus guides him through this difficult time. Horus knows. Horus knows what it is like to lose a father, to avenge him. 

Bayek feels that steady ache, that thirst. He knows it isn’t enough. He feels Senu’s calculating gaze on his back as he rides home. He finds Aya on the ground floor, cleaning a blade, sharpening it, sheathing it. The small swell of her belly is pressed against the white linen of her tunic. The black kohl around her eyes is smudged by the daytime heat.

He feels his blood run hot, his chest broils, even in the oasis. 

“Bayek,” she says, lifting her gaze to meet his brown eyes. Soulful and tender. “Bayek, my love, are you—”

He doesn’t let her finish only rushes over to her, presses her down against the mats and pillows. Distantly, the blade clatters to the stone floor. She smells of ash and smoke, a fire pit, and dates, so sweet it makes his teeth ache.

\--

When Khemu is born, Bayek feels like he is soaring high above the clouds, looking down on Egypt with bright eyes. With one hand holding his son, he presses a cool cloth against Aya’s damp forehead.

He looks at his small family. This is peace.

\--

Aya grows distant in the months following Khemu’s death. She travels back to Alexandria, leaving Bayek with vengeance in his heart and a thirst for blood. Hepzefa places a warm hand on his shoulder, watching helplessly as his closest friend rages and rages, screaming to the gods.

“You must do what your heart tells you to do, my friend,” Hepzefa says one night as he helps Bayek into bed. He cleans Bayek’s bloody knuckles without question, makes his meals with no worries, chops the wood to feed the fire pit. “Find purpose. Siwa will still be here when you return.”

The next day, Bayek hunts for men who wear masks in the daylight.

\--

He’s taken five contracts and completes them in less than two weeks. He can see the others eyeing him warily. He plunges himself into his work.

“Take some time for yourself, brother,” Tahira says between swigs of her beer.

He wants to complain, voice his discontent, eager to brush off Tahira’s worries. During his last visit to the bureau, Pasherenptah had filled Bayek’s hand with coin and said: “Go on an adventure.”

Bayek leaves Memphis the next morning, making the long journey to Yamu.

It feels like a lifetime has passed since his last visit here. He grimaces, letting his bare feet squish into the brackish water outside the temple. He sees Alexandria in the distance, the lighthouse a beacon that drains him of his energy. Too much has gone wrong in that city. 

“Old friend!” A familiar voice says behind him. Menehet stands behind him, arms raised wide with cheeks round and rosy. “I was told there was an eagle flying nearby.” 

Menehet and his wife feed him at their table. His children, growing older as the months wane, have fun playing with Senu. Feeding her from their hands, stroking over her soft feathers. It’s more attention than she gets these days.

Soris, the eldest boy, has grown – lanky and spry with a shadow of hair on his upper lip. Bayek wonders what Khemu would look like at this age. Healthy and sixteen. Long-limbed and stocky. Would he look like freckled Aya with knowledge twinkling in his eyes? 

Bayek shakes his head free of those thoughts. 

He stays for six days: helping around the temple, playing with Menehet’s younger children, hunting and selling his wares at the local shops. He tells Menehet and his family goodbye on the seventh morning, leaving for the pristine pillar of Alexandria.

\--

Phanos the Younger is with a few of his actors, lamenting over something he had miswritten in his latest script. He may be a member of the Hidden Ones, but Phanos has always been eager to unveil his passion to the public. Fighting in the shadows has not stilled the artist in himself. If anything, it has stirred his voracity for politics and justice.

“Bayek!” he yells, attracting too much attention as usual. 

Bayek shakes his head in amusement. 

“Welcome back to Alexandria! I thought our paths may never meet again! Yet Hermes smiles down upon me, gifting me with this mighty traveler!”

It is as if Phanos is directing and acting in his own play. Audacious and brash, his character ages in the sunset of his performance and is unwilling to yield to Cleopatra’s hulking guards.

Phanos invites him back to his home. A party held in his honor, but Bayek knows Phanos had every intention of holding a feast that night, whether or not Bayek was in attendance. He sticks to the shadows, nursing a cup of beer. He notes: Phanos doesn’t just hold parties for frivolities. He’s tending his flock, preening and poaching on slips of information. Phanos has his own agents in his employment, tasked with entertaining the Queen or cleaning up after her men. They gather secrets and disseminate information with their sheer costumes, breezy gossamer, bejeweled bodies. 

A broad-shouldered man approaches Bayek in the hours of the early morning, just before the sun rises. And for once, since losing his wife to this dynasty they’ve created, he lets himself go. The wrestling, the anticipation, the puff of warm air as the man – Aeolus – presses a wet kiss to his neck. Large hands grabbing his waist just as Bayek hilts himself inside, trembling and aching from the loneliness that’s become his steadfast companion. Bayek feels drenched, saturated in sweat and seed and the warmth of another body. 

He awakens to a heavy bulk splayed over his chest, tan skin pressed firmly to his brown shade. He smiles.

\--

At the turn of the season, Bayek wishes to travel back to Memphis. He has work to do and the time away has given him fresh senses and a clear head.

“You should stop by Aya’s home before you leave,” Phanos smiles, clapping Bayek on the shoulder. “One of my actor friends, his wife comes to clean it every few weeks. You should sleep there before you go.”

His words startle Bayek, the smile and twinkling in the playwright’s eyes make him hesitant. But Bayek shrugs, heading down the clean Alexandrian streets, smelling the warm baked bread from the nearest food stand. Not even the guards can knock the smile from his face with their gloomy dispositions and loud shouting. 

Aya’s home smells musty, despite how spotless it appears. There are no marks of dust or the leavings of rodents. Aya has left behind tools and bushels of herbs, rarely used weapons and barrels of fragrant seasonings. Amunet’s agents must use this house as their personal crossroads, a place to put their weary heads down. It reminds him of better times.

He doesn’t know why Phanos told him to come here, it only drains him of the happiness he had been feeling the last few weeks. Time spent feasting at Phanos’ home, seeing a play about the seduction of Caesar by the sultry Queen. Swimming in the Great Green Sea, fishing in Lake Mareotis. Racing on horseback through the streets of Kanopos with Aeolus’ strong arms wrapped around his waist, sunbathing with Aeolus on rooftops. Aeolus, who he wishes to take back with him to Memphis. Aeolus, who reminds him so much of Hepzefa that it physically pains him and leaves him breathless. A ghost in a man’s flesh.

The sound of footsteps in the small courtyard brings him back to the present. He steels himself, grabbing for one of his weapons when a familiar, smiling figure stands in the doorway. His gut clenches and his chest throbs, his knees growing weak. 

“Hello, Bayek of Siwa,” she says. Another ghost in human flesh. 

“Ay—” Bayek stops himself, clearing his throat and licking his lips. “Amunet, what brings you to Alexandria?”

Amunet shrugs off her hood, her freckles dark against her tan skin. He still loves Aya, but this is another person altogether. A comrade in arms, no longer wife. 

“I took a contract in Herakleion,” she says, leaning against the doorway. “I ran into Tahira. She told me you were on an adventure.”

“Is that so?” he raises an eyebrow.

“I may have asked around,” Amunet grins, “and prodded Phanos for information. He tells me you make the journey back to Memphis soon.”

 _Hunt with me,_ he wants to say. _One last time._

“Soon,” he says, instead.

“Phanos tells me, you have become close with Aeolus,” Amunet’s grin widens. 

Bayek’s cheeks grow warm. 

“Your happiness makes me happy, Bayek,” Amunet says, softly. “It always has.” 

She takes slow, hesitant steps towards him, as if she is trying to not scare him off like a straying gazelle. He falls into her embrace, rubs his cheek against her hair and smelling the salt clinging to her braids. The sea and its churning waves. Amunet is a maelstrom, Charybdis reborn.

“Climb with me, my love,” Amunet says, like no time has passed between them. “One more time.”

Bayek does not hesitate.


End file.
